Well, that is a huge reason why i am getting off this website. i don't see any reason to even take a chance. i did no sign up to be part of some big corporate scheme to make money. i came for help. well, now i'm leaving for the same reason.

I myself have wondered about what I post or write in my journal on here. Sometimes I am just venting but have worried that if the information got out, I would be judged or worse have my children taken away because I say I am depressed and have trouble coping with so much going on. Technology, helps and hurts at the same time. Criminals hiding behind a computer screen.

Here are the basic steps each MEMBER needs to take to protect them self her and on other anonymous internet sites:

1) Choose a user name that can not be easily tied to your real life name. So if you have a nickname from childhood, say "BugEater", then do NOT use that as your name on the internet!

2) Keep key details about you away from discussions. For example, being a clerk in city hall is not very telling for a person who lives in a big city like Chicago, it is very telling if you live in a very small town and name the town!

3) Never, never, NEVER publish your email address, phone number, address, or personal blog site! That connects your real life to your online life.

As for what DS is doing, there are some basic things. First of all, when new users join and and start asking for personal information, they get deleted as soon as they are reported. CLs have a fast track to report abuse like this, so if you find it and know a CL, then please let him/her know!

DS does employ technology to help protect us. They don't talk to me about it, so I have no idea what methods they use. Keep using the abuse report link when you see suspicious activity. That lets DS factor it into their safeguards.

Please note that this is an ongoing battle between site administrators and crooks: the bad guys develop new tools, and then then the good guys respond. Back and forth it goes.

But like stated at the top of my reply; our best defense lies in how we act here! The better job we do protecting our anonymity, the less scammers will "scrape" from the internet.


DId this help?

That is really scary. That, in addition to the new realization (new to me, anyway) that any thread can be shared to a social network, simply by anyone (not even necessarily the OP) clicking the "share this" icon, are factors that lead me to the decision to never start a new thread. How do I know where it might end up? I realize that this is the internet, and anonymity is not guaranteed, but when you belong to a mental health board, and there is a chance that your latest "pour your heart out" thread could end up over on facebook somewhere, well, those are just not chances I want to take.

Who is writing the scraper software and is it legal?
Can they scrape our chats?
Can they scrape our private journals?

OMG ...................... dots being connected............... OMG

Trigger. Trigger. Trigger.
Just shoot me in the head.

If you think of these scrappers being people with way too much time on their hands, it may make more sense. Imagine a person with nothing better to do than to log into sites, read everything that is posted, and then tell their boss when it looks like they found out a juicy tidbit about Lady Goo Goo. (Or whoever)

I suspect that it is legal, but that does not make it moral!